Excellent work ET,at last we may be getting somewhere. As I suspected the pos&neg output are not equal, this is because the CDI prob. only loads the WW with the pos going pulse, and not or less so in the neg. direction,so it would make sense to try rig up a negative going rectifier&charging circuit.Hopefully the CDI wouldn't notice it (I'm not a 100% sure of that unless I could take a look at the schematic).Do you have a live 12 V battery lying around that you could hook up to the charge circuit ?,the size does not matter but it should be able to put out power at 12V,otherwise it,s not a proper load (high resistance).To find out wether a diode is an ordinary diode or a zener do the following:hook it up to a dc source FI you car batt. and check voltage after diode to other side of batt, should be about 0.6V lower than batt. voltage,if not, and NOT zero you've got a zener.If zero you have an ordinary diode or an blown one,The voltage difference is the zener strike voltage.
If you now reverse the diode connections you should get zilch for a normal diode, if not you have a zener.BTW a zener behaves like an ordinary diode in one direction,but has what is called avalance breakdown when subjected to a voltage above the breakdown voltage.Not a good idea to use them in rectifier circuits.Of course if the zener breakdown voltage exceeds your test source voltage you wont beable to find out what it is (not likely).Do me a favor and measure the resistance of WW to ground,engine not running should be in 10/20 ohm range,my guess.Then we'll take it from there,make sure about the diode otherwise we'll be going nuts in a hurry.I think we stand a fighting chance of getting something to work.One last question can you measure currents with that meter,if so what ranges,the digital job might not handle short charge pulses all that well,but it beats nothing at all.
